Til My Dying Day
by spindletwig
Summary: What if Blaine never got to sing Come What May? Set between 4x14 and 4x15, warning for major character death.


**I promised that I would never leave you with angst, and I don't think I have.**

**Warning for major character death though...**

* * *

It started with a phone call. It was his dad's voice on the other end, strong and soothing as always, but the words coming out of his mouth were anything but. It was a car accident, he said. Ten minutes from the airport with a plane ticket to New York on the passenger seat. The other driver was devastated, it was an unlucky series of events that nobody could've foreseen, it was nobody's fault, especially not his. Especially not Blaine's. He said the funeral was going to be sometime next week, and that he should be there, that Blaine would want him there.

The call was over before the ad break of the Project Runway marathon he'd been watching was. The worst news of his life, condensed into a three minute slot. His world had just stopped, and yet New York was still moving, still thriving. Didn't it understand what had happened? Didn't those people on the sidewalk know that one of the sweetest, bravest, most amazing men in the world wasn't here anymore? He took a breath and turned off the television. Silence was good.

* * *

Kurt made the flight back to Ohio in silence, while Rachel held his hand tight and sobbed under her breath. He spent the car journey to Lima staring out of the window and flinching whenever another car got too close, and noticing that his father had tactfully avoided the route that- the other way. The next few days were a whirlwind of friends and family and a lot of tears. Kurt never cried, couldn't cry, not just then.

The funeral was flashy, the Anderson's showing off their wealth in their grief. The casket, closed, was beautiful, ornate, the same mahogany as his eyes. Kurt suspected they didn't realise this, but he did. The flowers were white roses, which were nice, but were never Blaine's favourite. He liked sunshine colours, reds and yellows. He figured Blaine's parents just never knew.

Cooper made a speech, for once completely serious and solemn. He said things that Kurt just knew Blaine never heard from him in his lifetime, things that would've made him smile that big beaming grin that Kurt could never resist matching, that nobody could resist matching. Blaine could light up a room. Who was going to do that now he was gone?

Both the Warblers and New Directions sang, he wasn't surprised. He was glad that he could spot some sheepish faces in those red and blue blazers, and even more so when Trent and Wes, who flew in from Stanford, took the lead vocals on 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'. New Directions sang 'Without You' from _Rent_, a choice that had Kurt wrinkling his nose. It was too much from some people who'd only known him a few months for the most part, but he figured that he never knew just how close they were with him. Blaine and he were… They were fixing themselves. Their relationship. And now it was irrevocably broken.

Sam was the one who told him about the plan. About why he was on the way to the airport in the first place. He'd seen all his friends whispering furiously, deciding whether to tell him or not. He knew something was going on, knew Blaine had had something up his sleeve. But as Sam talked about lanterns and flowers and Moulin Rouge, Kurt found himself hating Blaine. Why couldn't he have waited? Kurt would've been back in Lima sooner or later, they needed time, time to figure things out, to reconcile what happened at the wedding with their feelings, with their love, for each other. If Blaine had waited, he'd still be there. Kurt would've waited forever for Blaine, why couldn't he have done that for him?

That's when he cried.

* * *

Life moves even when you don't want it to. Kurt and Rachel flew back to New York. New Directions won regionals. Cooper Anderson got his big break as a love interest on some cable TV show. Life even turned out okay, in the grand scheme of things.

Kurt ended up leaving NYADA. It wasn't the place for him, it was the place for people like Rachel and Brody and, well, Blaine. Isabelle welcomed him back with open arms, and Vogue became his second home once more.

He never married, never had kids. He had relationships, and even one love, a nice man named Luke who adored him and had hazel eyes that were just close enough. That ended over tears and a way too flashy diamond engagement ring which Kurt had been adamant he'd never wanted. Well, not with Luke anyway. So he remained single, not rare in the fashion industry, and forged a name for himself, and kept his life just the way he liked it.

* * *

In the end, it was unexpected. Forty four years old, prostate cancer, just like his late father, though far _far _worse. Terminal was the word the doctors used. They gave him six months, so he did the only compulsive thing he'd done since running off to New York with no job and no apartment all those years ago; he sold his brownstone, gave up his job as the fashion editor of , and moved to a lighthouse in Provincetown. Just like they had planned.

It happened peacefully, in his sleep, with nothing beside him but the empty air. Finn and his wife found him the next morning with a soft smile on his face, long gone to a place they didn't know existed.

A place where Kurt Hummel opened his eyes, and for the first time in 25 years, looked into the face of the only man he had ever loved.

And he did the one thing he'd never been surer of in his entire existence; he took his hand, and he never looked back.


End file.
